


Among the Lost

by theleafpile



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chapter 2 is more fluffy i promise, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Last chapter is happy I promise, Post-Season/Series 02, Reveal, Reveal Fic, Sharing a Bed, Why does chloes bed show up so much, bed sharing, how many times can I break my own heart, post 2x18, revelations on the beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-12 14:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11739201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleafpile/pseuds/theleafpile
Summary: How does she know who he is, when he doesn't?





	1. Chapter 1

She had looked for him. 

She had looked for him for three days, until she collapsed at the precinct, the caffeine unable to rouse her any longer and the lack of sleep had her seeing shadows in the hospital security footage where there were none.

Dan brought her home that evening, tucked her inside her bed, unable to squash the feeling that Chloe was expending far too much effort to find a man who was in the habit of running away.

She assured him, repeatedly, over cups of lukewarm office coffee, that this was different.

Sure, Dan thought. Different. 

Chloe awoke the next evening to a text from Dan’s parents, updating her on Trixie’s two-week summer adventure with them, and another to ask how she was doing. 

If only she knew.

She stretched languidly in the bed. Her head had finally stopped swimming, and for a moment, she felt almost sane. Until the image of Lucifer, lost, struck her again, and any menial amount of comfort she felt came with a heaping pile of guilt that her partner may be somewhere less accommodating. He had to be lost. He wouldn't leave. Not after a message like that.

He may be dead.

She shook the thought from her mind, steeling her expression and tossing off the covers. Maybe she was overreacting. Wouldn't be the first time. She was going back to the precinct, check in with missing persons – again – watch the security footage – again – and see if anything fresh popped up while she was out. She showered, changed, found a sandwich Dan had left in the fridge with a sticky note reminding her to eat, and had just slipped on her shoes when a crash outside her door had pausing, instinctively reaching for the gun at her hip. The apartment complex was generally quiet at night, and she'd memorized the sounds of her neighbors, coming and going. This wasn't them.

Slowly, she made her way to the door, listening. Something heavy thudded against her door.

She swung it open. 

Lucifer fell inside.

The shock of his appearance wore off within seconds. She stayed in cop mode, stepping over his shirtless and beaten and torn body – to be analyzed in a moment, her mind whirled – and into the cold night air, searching around for signs of someone dropping him off, someone who had done this, something – anything – 

Lucifer used the doorframe to lift himself up as she looked, leaning against it heavily. The cop persona slipped as she turned. Too many conflicting emotions flooded her brain, happy to see him, concern, worry, fear – God, the fear, it all came rushing forward and she could only steel herself against it with what little hardness she had left inside, lifting his arm over her shoulders and bringing him inside.

She couldn’t see him smile as she wrapped her arm around his waist, but she knew it was there. Swiftly, she brought him inside her bedroom, deposited him on the bed, then scurried out to grab a first aid kit and wash cloth from the bathroom, and as many bottles of water she could carry from the refrigerator. He didn’t speak to her as she did this, which had her mind racing. 

By the time she’d returned, throwing the items on the bed, Lucifer had slipped to the floor, one leg curled under and the other splayed out, hunched forward.

She cracked open a bottle and kneeled, holding it out.

“Do you feel it?” he asked quietly, patting the floor. He could not bring himself to look at her. 

She shook her head, unable to speak. He was delirious, his movements loose. His skin had burned against hers when she brought him in; she could only imagine how the chapped and torn skin had come to be. 

Three days in the desert. She’d heard that somewhere, before.

“Feel what?” she managed, holding the bottle to his lips. He ignored it, his gaze lost somewhere on the floor between them. His hand smoothed over the short carpeting. “Feel what, Lucifer?” she asked again, more steadily.

“It’s just there, you know,” he said, jamming an index finger on the ground. He stilled it, pointing downward. “Hurts,” he whispered, as though desperate to explain.

She willed the tears not to fall from her eyes. “Please, drink.”

He looked up as though surprised to see her there. She took the opportunity to lift the bottle to his lips, forcing the liquid into his mouth. After the first few swallows, he took it from her and drank the rest greedily. She handed him another, and another.

She realized it was a bad idea when he pushed past her, rushing out of the room. She stayed, bowled over on the floor, until the sound of retching stopped.

The sound of her shower starting jostled her from her reprieve and she got to her feet, kicking off her shoes at the bedroom doorway. She wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon, not if she could help it. She knocked on the half-open bathroom door. “Lucifer?” she called, softly. 

No response.

She eased the door further open. Lucifer was on his knees in the shower as if in prayer, his trousers soaked. Even from the doorway she could feel how cold the water must have been, for the open shower door had water spilling over her bathroom, his figure pinging droplets into the air.

He held his face in his hands, oblivious to her presence over the sound of the water.

She didn’t want to intrude, but couldn’t stop herself from walking closer. Magnetic presence, indeed, she thought with a small smile. It died as she sat, facing him, resting against the shower door. He finally stirred, wiping his hands over his face, smoothing back his hair. It didn’t stay that way for long with the water hitting his shoulders, running over his back. She winced as a small stream of blood joined the sand, circling the drain.

“What –” 

He laid a hand on her knee, and she looked into his face. 

Time, it pleaded. 

She left the question unasked. He removed his hand, placing it with the other in front of him, leaning forward against his palms. Slowly, he closed his eyes, letting the water continue to run over him.

The silence washed them both clean.

“I’m not the Devil,” he said. Her already elevated heartrate jumped in her throat. He shook his head. “I’m supposed to be. I was –” he took in a deep breath. “I am. I wasn’t, always.”

She silently urged him to continue. His fingers gripped the wet tile. The fight raging with him was seeping out, and the cold water couldn’t cover the heat radiating off his skin.

“I don’t know if I was supposed to be,” he continued. “I don’t know if it was all – inevitable – or,” he lifted his eyes to hers, searching. She had no answers for his questions, and he dropped them once more, fingers curling into his palms. “It seems the more I - try to embrace – when I just want –”

His hands turned to fists, the muscles in his arms tensing. She resisted the urge to reach out.

“I’ve only ever tried to be my own man,” he managed, his jaw clenching, “Yet anything I do to accomplish that is taken away, taken –” he closed his eyes again, breathing heavily. She saw his shoulder muscles tighten and jump beneath his skin. “Given – dragged back –”

The tile cracked under his knuckles, and more blood ran toward the drain. She laid a hand softly atop the closest fist. He stared at it.

“Nothing I do, matters,” he said, speaking to her hand. “Nothing we do, matters,” he repeated, more lucidly, looking into her face. “Sinner, saint. Free will is an illusion.” The words fell heavily from his mouth. “Even you, Detective.”

A slight eyebrow raise from her prompted him further.

“’Heaven-sent’” he repeated, his words from when she nearly died, the last words he spoke to her before he disappeared. It opened a tentatively-closed wound in her. He could see the shift in her eyes, and she retracted her hand. “And I wish – I wish to God,” he emphasized, and that made her skin crawl, “you weren’t.”

She steeled her gaze, pushing the pain back down. He breathed out, and the fight of it left him. She turned off the water, the knob squeaking in protest. The water gurgled down the drain, leaving a fine coat of sand around the rim.

“What happened?” she asked, harder than she intended. 

His gaze began to drift again, and she tried to regain his attention. “Lucifer. Tell me. Please.” 

She’d had enough experience with interrogation to see when someone had no answers, so she stood and grabbed the towel off the rung, holding it out for him to take. He made no move to reach for it, so she set it atop the sink. “I’ll find something else for you to wear, alright?”

He nodded, and she left.

 

Chloe found an old pair of gray sweatpants she’d stolen from Dan years ago, and her largest t-shirt (an impulse purchase that ended up being a men’s medium instead of a woman’s). Two bottles of water and half a sandwich down, Lucifer stood awkwardly in the center of her apartment, turning on bare feet to take in the space as though he’d never seen it before.

She wondered when the last time he slept had been, given it was now rounding midnight, and he’d only shown up an hour or so ago.

He finished his turn as she put his plate in the sink, settling his gaze on her. 

“Where is Mazikeen?” he asked, a power behind his voice she hadn't yet heard that evening.

He rarely used her full name, and she couldn’t figure out why he had chosen to, in this moment. “I texted her a little bit ago. Told her you were here and okay.”

“I’m surprised she’s not here to scold me,” he scoffed. He studied her as she patted her hands on a dishtowel. “You told her not to come.”

“Seemed like you wanted to be alone,” she explained. As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized that was the last thing he wanted. 

“She listened,” he said, recovering. “To you.”

“Yeah, real awful,” she teased, walking into the living area. She stopped a few feet short of him. “How are you feeling?”

He shrugged lightly. “A bit beat.”

“I mean – you know.”

He gazed down at her. “A bit beat,” he repeated.

She took a few steps past him, toward her bedroom door. “Are you going to go home, then?”

He wavered in place, eyes darting toward the front door. 

“You were going to tell me something,” she said, breaching the subject they had so far managed to avoid. “Before you,” left, she nearly said. “Before this.” She took in a deep breath at his hesitation. “Stay,” she said. “I’d like it if you’d stayed." 

He looked toward the couch, and she could see the wheels turning, albeit somewhat slowly, in his mind. 

“With me,” she said, taking a few steps backward until she reached the threshold to her bedroom. “Here,” she finished.

He took a tentative step forward, then gestured toward himself, a tiny, sheepish smile flashing over his dark features. “I’m not, really myself –”

“I trust you,” she said, with all the finality of a coffin nail.

He nodded, then followed her into the room. She downturned the fluffy, white bedspread and crawled in on the right side, closest the door, while Lucifer followed through on the left. She’d been prepared for remarks about her bed, but they never came. He laid, flat on his back, staring at the dark ceiling. She shifted over to face him.

“Pillow talk, detective?” he asked, his eyes closed. She smiled. Maybe he wasn’t so far from her, after all. 

“Doesn’t that usually come after?” she asked, boldly. He looked over at her, then huffed out a small laugh.

Both their easy smiles began to fall in the rising darkness and silence between them. She shut her eyes, settling in deeper into the pillow, content to feel the dip in the mattress of someone beside her. It had been a long time since she’d felt that.

“’I know who you really are,’” he said, into the dark. 

She opened her eyes. “I remember.”

“How?”

She pulled the pillow a little further from her face. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s strange,” he said, lifting a hand and flexing it. “It’s not a statement of belief, or faith. You ‘know.’” He let the hand fall. “But you don’t. I don’t think.”

She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying it before she abruptly sat up, facing him on her knees. He pulled himself up enough to lean back on his elbows. “Why do you think you’re the Devil?” she asked.

“Because I am.”

“But why?”

“I don’t think this line of questioning is going to yield you the results you want, detective.”

She held up a hand, stopping his words. “Don’t ‘detective’ me. You’re in my bed. It’s the middle of the night. You can call me by my name.”

He nodded once, conceding.

“The Devil is a mythical being, evil incarnate. You could not be further from him.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she continued.

“Whoever you were. Whatever happened to you, whatever made you think you were that. I don’t, because I don’t see it. Because it’s not there,” she said, a hand making its way to her chest, holding in her own heart. “Yeah, you’re impulsive, and immature, and I hate the danger you put yourself in. And I’m not here,” she paused, faltering, “I can’t offer you absolution for whatever you did in the past. But no matter how many times you’ve hurt me –” his expression fell, “– I forgive you. I don’t know if I always can. But right now. I forgive you.”

He let the words sink in, then exhaled, pushing himself upright. Chloe resisted pulling away from his much closer proximity. He gazed at the bedspread, leaning heavily on his hands, nodding as though he’d come to a decision. 

A small smile came across his lips as he lifted his eyes to hers, laying a hand atop her own. It was a look that held something she'd never seen in him before. 

Hope.

A pair of great, white wings gently materialized from his back, filling the room with a soft, ambient light. 

Chloe felt the air drain from her lungs, unable to pull her gaze away. Lucifer squeezed her hand. 

“Be not afraid."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a sequel, by popular demand :)

“Be not afraid.”

It was a plea to her as much as a reminder to him. 

“Be not,” Chloe exhaled, then snapped her hand out from under his, smacking his hand, arm, leg still beneath the covers, whatever what was in reach at the moment in protest. “Are you kidding me?” she asked.

He retracted his wings with a snap, plunging them both into darkness. Chloe slipped out the bed and began to back out the room, wagging her finger, words trying to form in her mouth. As she reached the threshold she turned on her heel and was gone.

Lucifer stared at the space she’d once occupied. He nodded to himself. “That went well.”

A barrage of slamming sounds roused him from the bed, and he sighed at the sight of Chloe, who had decided to take out any latent frustrations on the cupboards in search of a glass before recalling the bottles of water in the fridge. He watched from the center of the room while she opened and slammed the fridge door, opening a bottle and drinking it angrily.

He’d never seen someone drink water angrily before. He hadn’t known it was possible.

“You’re taking this remarkably well,” he offered, a question in his voice. She stared at him, still gulping. “My brother told me the last time he revealed himself he was met with what he described as an ‘inordinate’ amount of projectile vomit. Though I'm not sure what an ordinate amount would be. So thank you for not doing… that.”

She finished the water and crunched the bottle in her hand, half a mind to throw it at him.

In the glaring silence that followed Lucifer began to feel a very odd sensation, of having complete knowledge of himself and how he looked, and not in a good way. He wondered how he appeared to her, in that moment, disheveled and open and too vulnerable, wishing very much that he was in a suit, in his penthouse, and that he cared just… a little less than he did right now.

Cared about what she thought of him. At least that much was true.

As he waited, fear building, the anger in Chloe began to subside. Fight or flight, and her body chose the former, it seemed. She shouldn’t be surprised by that. What she ought to be surprised by was the fact that Lucifer Morningstar, owner of the one of the hottest clubs in the city (“’One of the’?” she could hear him protest, in her mind), playboy and partner from Hell was actually from…

You know.

There.

She tossed the empty bottle in the trash and leaned against the counter as she made her way to the front, facing him but still bracing herself against it. “Are you kidding?” she asked again, though with much more concern than fear in her voice.

“Yes,” he hissed. “Seems that I’m punchline to a big cosmic joke, as it stands.”

She pulled a fist to her chin and nodded thoughtfully, eyes wide and darting to either side of the room. The movement caught him off guard, and he studied her face, trying to decipher what was hidden beneath. “This is ridiculous,” she concluded. “You’re ridiculous.”

There was that sensation again, the hyperawareness only adding to the ache in his shoulders. He could feel whatever she had broken in him begin to build itself back up defensively. Unconsciously, he took a tiny step away from her. “I apologize, detective. As I said. I haven’t quite been myself. This could have been –” he faltered. “I should’ve known.”

Her hand slowly lowered away from her face as the shock of it all it her. Lucifer seemed not to notice, taking her silence as a plea to be left alone.

“I’ll go,” he said, taking a few steps toward the door. 

She stopped him with an outstretched hand as he passed her, holding tightly onto his forearm. Finally, she lifted her eyes to his face. “Lucifer,” she said, trying not to wince at the name, “If you leave right now I swear to God I will send you to Hell myself.”

“Copy that, detective,” he relented. “Chloe,” he corrected at her glare, and she dropped his arm. “What now?” he asked.

“Do I look like someone with answers to you?” she asked, shaking her head. She waved her hands as though to clear the air between them. “This is way too much for,” she strained to look at the clock over the oven, “quarter to one in the morning. I texted Dan earlier, the search’s been called off, and you’re here, you know, in one piece – more than one,” she said, and he cracked a small smile, “and we are going to figure out all this in the morning, okay?”

Her speech had carried her further into the living room, away from his side. She stopped, and turned again to face him. “I just really want to go to bed, okay? I just –” she searched for the right words, and he wavered in place. “You were gone,” she decided. “You were just – gone. And I looked. I looked until everything started to look like security cam footage and every second I had to convince myself that you didn’t just – leave. That you wouldn’t. Not again. And I think that was harder than the searching,” she said, swallowing. “So you can – you will – tell me all about what happened. In the morning.”

“You sure you want me to stay?” he asked, quietly. “Now that you know I’m safe and mostly sound.”

“I sincerely doubt you’ve ever been either of those things,” she said, sparking a laugh from her partner. “I can’t stop you if you want to go. But yes. I want you to stay.”

He took a few steps forward toward her and the bedroom, and she held up a hand, stopping him. He hesitated, waiting.

“First,” she said, waving a hand, “You get to show me again.”

“Detective – Chloe,” he corrected. She glared. He took in a breath, then spread the wings, shaking them out a little. They nearly brushed the doorway and he let a few feathers drape lazily over the back of the couch. She made no move to come closer. He figured she would be one to want to discover everything she could about them, but she remained rooted to the spot. Perhaps it was too soon. Perhaps she didn’t care for them at all. Even he knew they were a little garish, taking up so much space and shining like great big ‘look at me’ beacons, which he would usually be okay with, but –

“They’re gorgeous,” she breathed. He shook them out once more, then folded them back and away. By the time he looked back up she was already in the bedroom. 

“You coming?” she called out. He smiled, small but genuine, and smoothed down the front of his shirt before joining her.

Their conversation wafted softly out into the dark and empty apartment, a gentle glow emanating from beneath her closed bedroom door. “Projectile vomiting?” she asked, followed by two voices joining one another in laughter. “Yes,” he answered. “Seems even divine intervention couldn’t get the stains out from his tunic… fashion is much less sensible nowadays, but the lines are much more flattering…”


	3. Chapter 3

It started innocently enough. 

In fact, it started in a very positive way, and it took Chloe weeks to realize what had happened. She’d just thought she’d been catching him at odd times, in-between moments – until they’d spent most of the evening at his penthouse, pouring over a casefile together. As he bent over, inadvertently breaking into her personal space, it hit her with a jolt:

Lucifer had stopped drinking.

The bar was still stocked, of course. Chloe gave it another few days, another few visits to his home, keeping a careful eye on the levels in the bottles before she came to the conclusion. They had not changed. Something in him had, instead.

Chloe kept her observations to herself, unwilling to burst whatever tentative bubble this was, whatever was happening within him. He kept smoking, for one. For another few weeks. She’d caught him standing just outside the caution tape at crime scenes, lighting up, but he was more than eager to put the cigarette out when she approached – until he simply, one day, stopped. It passed without fanfare.

Chloe invited him to the apartment more often, then. He seemed to behaving himself more readily, easily slipping into some semblance of a routine with her. He didn’t appear at the precinct as blurry-eyed as before (no matter how much he denied it), he started to knock at her door before barging in, and began to listen. Really, listen.

And as the school year started up again, he’d offered, on more than one occasion, to pick up or drop off Trixie. And he used her name, not some convoluted or derogatory nickname.

None of it bothered her. The domesticity was pleasant, even. She kept a wary eye out, convinced he was trying something and would eventually bore, but the day never came. 

Nor, surprisingly, for her. Because as much as she craved a stable home life, a safe working environment, there was something in her that demanded chaos, chaos that Lucifer had been more than happy to provide. And as that faded, her interest in him did not. 

It started like that. 

Pleasant.

Until it wasn’t, anymore.

 

She hadn’t asked him to show her the wings again, convinced he would, in his own time. After that first night, they had yet to broach the topic again, no matter how many times the opportunity presented itself. She’d discovered, quite by accident, a way to calm the rage within him.

He’d been towering over a suspect, crouched and cowering against a discarded AC unit in an equally-abandoned alleyway when she’d come upon them. She held the gun, said her piece, and urged Lucifer to back off. He was backing away, unable to tear his eyes away from the suspect – a look in them that suggested he wanted to tear into him, literally – when he backed into her, and she put a hand up to stop him from mowing her over. 

She let her hand rest between his shoulder blades, and the fire within him drained.

She used that trick again in the interrogation room. And again. And again. 

Until she no longer needed to. He no longer needed her to.

 

Just before Halloween, Maze leaned on the kitchen counter, watching Chloe cook the three of them dinner, a curious look on her face. 

“What?” Chloe asked, able to feel the questioning eyes on her back.

“I’ve never seen him like this,” she said, without precedent or a warm-up. Cut right to the quick, as usual.

“Like what?”

Maze licked her bottom lip, choosing her words carefully. Another change she’d experienced. “It’s not right.”

Chloe sighed, letting the pasta boil unattended for a few moments as she turned to her friend. “I know that he’s been going through some stuff lately –”

“He’s not angry, anymore,” Maze interrupted. 

“No,” said Chloe, nodding hopefully. “No, I don’t think so, either.”

Maze fell silent, and Chloe returned to stirring the sauce.

“You know he hasn’t been to the club in a month,” Maze said. 

“I didn’t.” Chloe felt a small pang in her chest, but ignored it.

“He wants to give it to me.”

“That’s a nice offer,” said Chloe, deliberately not turning around. “Better money than bounty hunting. More stable income.”

“Do I look like I’m concerned about a stable anything? Just – listen, for a second,” she said, pushing herself upright. Chloe stilled the spoon, willing herself to turn around. “Lucifer has never been the most – thoughtful – person. Ever. And I mean never.”

“People change.”

“But he doesn’t. The Devil doesn’t. He created me, Decker. In his image,” she added, her mouth flashing into a snarl, “Do not ever tell him I admitted to that, got it?” 

Chloe shrugged.

“You know how I am. The point is, certain things fuel us, okay – him and me. I may have learned to adapt my behaviors to better match this world, but that doesn’t mean my core being has changed. And I’m telling you – I have never seen this in him. This… emptiness.”

“Emptiness?” Chloe asked, incredulous. “He seems fine. Happy, even.”

Maze smacked the counter. “Fine,” she nodded, turning away. “Don’t take my word for it. You watch. He’s anything but ‘happy.’”

 

It took her longer to notice he hadn’t been eating, either. No more snacks at the precinct, no more coffee in hand when he brought hers in the morning, no more pulling her into a restaurant at the end of the day and forcing her to forget, if only for a few minutes, the danger of the city surrounding them. No more snow cones at the beach, or stealing a bite of Trixie’s cake, surprisingly absent from the Taco Tuesdays he’d begun to attend. There was no physical change in him. No wasting of the muscles that remained taunt beneath tailored shirts and bespoke suits, no hallowing of his face or thinning of his wrists. Seemed he simply no longer had an interest in food, and apparently, that was no problem.

Something in him became quiet. 

 

He hesitated in her living room one evening as she tucked Trixie into bed, waiting by the couch as she read the story for a second time. She was sure he’d gone, so she didn’t rush the goodnights, eventually closing the door and surprised to find him still, not even fidgeting, leaning against the back of her couch. She approached as one may approach a feral cat, resting on the sidewalk ahead of her. 

“May I stay?” he asked, an index finger twitching in the direction of her bedroom.

She nodded, torn between concern and happiness, and decided to let him let her know when he was ready to talk about it, whatever it was. 

When she returned from the bathroom, changed into her PJs, he was seated on the bed, in the same spot as when he first showed her who he really was, seemingly lost in thought. He’d laid his clothes carefully on the armchair in the corner, and from what she could see, he wore only boxes. He seemed utterly content to do so. Comfortable. 

She slipped in next to him, facing him. “The last time you looked like that,” she started, and he lifted his eyes to hers, “my entire understanding of the Universe changed. And I don’t mean that in a sexual prowess kind of way,” she teased.

He huffed out a small laugh, barely more than a breath of air.

Her confidence evaporated, and she busied herself with setting the alarm on her phone. “You don’t seem very happy about it,” she managed to say.

“I don’t feel much of anything,” he said, far too quickly and far too much without thought. 

She stilled, setting the phone face down on the nightstand.

“Sorry,” he breathed, shaking his head and looking at the bedspread. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, recovering, pulling the corner of the cover over her lap.

Maze was right. 

She’d seen it. She ignored it. She wanted to ignore it. She wanted it to be different, to be better than it was. And here he was, slipping away, and she’d wanted it, for her own selfish reasons.

God, what hadn’t she seen?

She let him quietly collect his thoughts, then remembered his string of words in the shower, the argument he seemed to having within himself that she couldn’t reach, not in the state he was in. 

“’Free will is an illusion,’” she said, and he snapped his eyes to hers, “That’s what you said. I thought you were delirious.”

His eyes dropped to her lips. She parted them unconsciously. “What do you think?” he asked, and she could sense the tension in him, holding himself back from leaning in toward her. The air around them warmed, but it wasn’t the typical burning that emanated from his being, that she’d found herself taking advantage of during cold evenings, standing a bit closer to him than necessary. It was a warmth from her, she realized. Something in her was burning, drawing him closer. 

“I think,” she said softly, “I think you need it to be real.”

His gaze faltered, blinking rapidly. “Why do you say that?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Because without it,” she started, swallowing, “I don’t think the world makes sense to you.” 

He leaned heavily on a hand just in front of her knee; she trailed her fingers over the top of his, wrapping them around his wrist and forearm. She smiled, tracing up to his shoulder. He shook his head in a question. 

“You were confused, once, about me knowing you. About ‘knowing.’ But you do, don’t you – you know the whole Universe, the creation of the world, the stars… you know people, and punishment, but none of it works, does it? None of it works without faith?”

She let her hand push over his shoulder and leaned toward him, running her hand between his shoulder blades. 

“The Devil lost his faith long ago,” he began to argue, then stopped, confused, at her renewed smile.

“Not in God,” she said, pushing slightly against where his scars used to be, where the marbled tissue was no longer, and he exhaled, leaning into her touch. She could feel only two smooth, scythe-like dips in the skin. Her smile faded, the weight of it hitting her. “You lost your faith in Free Will.”

She felt him relax under her hand, his eyes still boring into hers. 

She could feel it, like a knot beneath his skin. He was holding something back.

“None of this is real,” he finally said. She stilled her hand. “You’re not – we’re not –” He started, with a small, rueful smile. “Yet here I am. Weak. As predicted.”

She lifted both hands to cup his face, urging him to look at her. “You may think you’re the biggest fuck up in the Universe, the original sin, the first to fall –” she said, and he tried to pull away from her. She held fast, and she could feel the rage beginning to build under him again, that fire that had been dying for so long, “– but you were not the last. Everybody screws up. Everybody falls. And you and I both need to believe that is due to our own choices. We are free, to screw up as royally as possible or as little as possible. It’s not up to some divine plan.”

“And you know this, how, exactly?” he asked, pulling himself away. She let her hands drop.

“I don’t.”

His jaw clenched, unable to hold the words in. “Then maybe you should stay within the limits of your intellectual capacity.”

She nodded slowly. The fight began to drain out of him, slipping from anger to the despair he had always just managed to hold at bay.

“Why do you think this isn’t real?” she asked, bracing herself for the answer. “Why are you so unwilling to be loved?”

He shut his eyes against her question. 

“Not willing to screw up, again?” she asked, an edge in her voice. “To give humanity a real chance? We must seem like ghosts, to you.”

Moths, he remembered, but dared not say aloud.

“What a sacrifice it must be,” she continued, and even she knew she was projecting – but, hell, he did it often enough – “to be here, with me. You’re probably anxious to –”

“Chloe,” he said, a warning in his voice. It chilled the room. She fell silent. She may have argued, against her will – but that was kind of the whole point of the conversation, to prove that sort of thing didn’t happen.

He could tell her.

He should tell her.

The truth was there, waiting just on his lips, ready to be spilled. He carried so many secrets.

She had a right to know the truth.

Just maybe – 

 

Maybe not tonight.

 

He wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her closer; she exhaled sharply at the movement, her breath against his lips. Her hands hovered, then gripped his arms. He laid his forehead against hers, breathing her in. She relaxed her grip. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her lips. She breathed in his apology, pulling it deep within her. He could feel her shaking her head.

It was wrong.

He had no right. She had no choice in her feelings, no matter how he’d tried to give it back to her. She kept coming back.

No one would do that, not if they could help it. 

Not for him.

She brushed her lips against his, closing the gap between them. He tightened his grip, almost painfully, against her skin, slipping his hand under the hem of her nightshirt. 

He deepened the kiss, pulling her flush against him, and she moaned softly into his mouth.

 

He never hated himself more.


	4. Chapter 4

He was supposed to leave. 

At least, that’s what he had promised himself: one more night.

One night, with her. 

He spent an eternity in Hell. He knew, in continuing a life without her, he would be returning to it.

He had never been very good at following orders, even when they came from himself.

He couldn’t leave without knowing what it was like. Not the sex, for she surely must have felt the seriousness of it, the finality amongst the tenderness like a railroad spike into virgin earth. They both took their time, careful, and though more than one laugh had been shared between them, he knew that she could sense his underlying desperation to feel it. 

To feel loved.

 

Another week, and he found himself unable to tear himself away from her, especially as the world around them darkened and grew colder. The light from the Sun grayed and washed the city out, settling like a threadbare blanket over bare, cold knees. He did not risk another night in her bed, no matter how late he stayed over. She did not push the issue. Another night and he may never leave. 

She encouraged him to eat when she did, at the precinct during lunch or at home for dinner, dishing him a plate of whatever she was having or making for Trixie. Easy foods, she knew. Something she could get him to eat without needing to think about it, like she did when Trixie was sick. Grilled cheese. Soup. And she never – not once – thought it was pathetic. She was pleased at the absentminded bites he would take, listening to her daughter talk about her day at school, or to Chloe, as she worked out the details of a case. 

She liked to run her fingers along the back of his neck, along the nape of his hair, when he was sitting. Trixie saw it. It was no secret. 

The child was, perhaps, far more intuitive than either of them gave her credit for.

 

Thanksgiving break rapidly approached and the weather had not let up, nor had Chloe’s caseload: family drama meant murders. Surely Lucifer would understand that. And babysitters were harder to come by over the holidays, when all the kids were home for three days before the weekend. 

They shared the holiday at her mother’s place, Dan spending a few hours earlier in the day helping Penelope cook (she could not cook, nor could he; he picked up her pre-ordered food from the store and helped set it up to look like she had) before heading over to visit his own parents. Penelope smiled and laughed and patted Lucifer’s arm like she’d known him her whole life, and Trixie roped them into watching a movie after the dishes were cleared; she grabbed Lucifer first, dragging him by the cuff into the living room. He could hear Chloe and her mother whispering about something in the kitchen, but he wasn’t able to make it out.

Trixie settled beside him and pressed play on the DVD menu, launching them into the world of a Disney movie he could swear they’ve already watched together, and she settled heavily into his side.

“Take me to the beach,” she asked, still watching the shooting star as it arched over the castle. “Tomorrow.”

“It’s going to be 50 degrees tomorrow, child.” 

He could feel her adjust her head into his shoulder, waiting. 

“I asked Mom.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said, and she giggled.

“Mommy!” she called out, righting herself and flipping around to gaze over the back of the couch. Chloe’s head popped out of the kitchen. “Can Lucifer take me to the beach tomorrow?”

Chloe narrowed her eyes at the request, then studied Lucifer’s face as he turned to look at her. “If he’s okay with it, sure. But no swimming. It’s too cold.”

Trixie barely restrained a squeal of delight as she flipped back around, a broad smile on her face. “I want to see the tide pools,” she explained, settling back against him and laughing at something on the screen. 

 

There were no tide pools in L.A., and he wasn’t sure if the child knew that or not, when she made her request.

Lucifer entered the apartment in the hushed and cool morning. He could hear Trixie behind her closed bedroom door, the sounds of getting dressed and talking to herself or one of her many toys, and he knocked gently before announcing her was there. She threw the door open, and in a hoarse whisper informed him where they could get breakfast – IHOP – and announced that she would be ready in no more than five minutes.

She went into the bathroom and closed the door. Lucifer made his way over to Chloe’s closed bedroom door, and with a breath, cracked it open. She lay undisturbed on her side, clutching the pillow beneath her, her golden hair fanned out behind her and muted in the somber light. He must have been standing for some time, leaning against the doorframe, because the child impatiently tugged at his jacket – a pea coat over one of the more casual suits, for the weather – and whispered something about leaving a note for Mommy.

He obliged, sticking it under a magnet on the fridge, and they left.

He took the 101 North, toward Santa Barbara; it was probably too far, an unnecessary distance, but Trixie seemed to enjoy watching the scenery change. He’d put the top on the Corvette and occasionally had to make use of the window wipers, but hadn’t needed to turn on the heat. She fiddled with the radio as the stations changed but kept the volume low enough to talk. Eventually, he slowed, pulling into an empty parking lot behind an equally empty beach, warned the child to zip up her jacket, and then abandoned the car in search of tide pools.

The child scampered ahead in search of them – there were plenty, scattering along the beach, increasing in size and number as they came closer to a sea cave – while he lagged behind, watching her jump from rock to rock, slipping here and there, admiring whatever lay within their shallow depths. He smiled at her enthusiasm, eventually joining her as she pointed out a particularly cool rock or plant. The tide retreated and he followed as she explored the cave, teetering against the flat, exposed rock that hugged its walls, shouting joyfully in the echo of the darkness beyond. The sound of the sea was magnified here, pushing and retreating in a shallow, yielding noise. 

She grabbed ahold of his hand to steady herself as the water began to rise, and he was happy to lift her up and over as he navigated a pool that had not been there when they first walked in. She wrapped her arms around his neck before he set her down upon the sand and she slipped away from him, running down the expanse of empty beach with arms outstretched, shouting toward the horizon, the gray and misting sky. 

And he laughed. 

He laughed at her buoyancy, the face she made when her foot tangled in a heap of washed up kelp, the yelp that escaped her lips when she nearly plowed over a small crab in her path, the peal of laughter that trickled as she tried to outpace the incoming waves.

He sat on a boulder, worn smooth from years of the salt in the air and the waves that lapped beneath it at high tide, shoving his hands in his pockets and alternating his view on the child and the horizon, flat and open in the distance.

They must have been coming upon lunchtime when Trixie approached him, her gait heavy and tired, a complaint of hunger on her lips that made it sound like she had never eaten (though they had before they got on the highway, Trixie getting herself a chocolate-chip pancake at the diner). 

She surprised him by crawling into his lap, and he tugged his hands from his pockets, laying one flat across the small of her back, the other resting on his leg.

They stayed like that, Trixie laying her head against his shoulder, watching the tides. He rested his chin against her forehead, wrapping a hand around her to keep her steady.

 

He felt hot tears spring into his eyes, so incongruous with the world around them. 

How could he leave?

He was not evil, in that way. 

Did he deserve to be punished? For what?

If he left, certainly for that.

He couldn’t quell the nagging sensation that this was not for him, that they were pawns in an unknown plan, pieces to be moved around at the whim of another, to manipulate him. To what end, he did not know. Chloe, and her daughter – the job, the club, even Dan – they were for him, and not for him, transient players on an ever-shifting board. 

And yet.

Perhaps they all were. Perhaps he was, as well.

Perhaps that’s what life was supposed to be.

 

Trixie sighed, and he could feel the heave of her breath as it coursed through her tiny body, and he hummed to question whatever was on her mind as the mist coated their faces, blurring them into the landscape.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said, simply and with the ease of one not yet used to being afraid to speak her mind.

He couldn’t lie to her, so he remained silent.

 

He would be abandoning them. 

He chanced a look up at the sky. 

He was not that cruel. They didn’t deserve it. They didn’t deserve the man he had become, this shadow of a thing.

 

“What makes you think I’m leaving?” he asked.

“Because you keep looking at Mommy like you’re never going to see her again.”

 

She didn’t deserve that. 

 

“Beatrice,” he said, and she lifted her head from his shoulder, unable, for a moment, to look him in the eye. 

 

Had he really been so cruel?

 

“What if I told you, that I don’t think what your mother feels for me, is real? That she has, in some way, been manipulated into,” he clenched his jaw before continuing, “caring for me?”

Trixie shook her head, thinking. “I don’t think you can do that,” she said. “I remember when all of my friends started telling me that Lucas really liked me and he even gave me his milk once, but I still didn’t like him because he wasn’t nice.”

He tried to smile at her. “I’m not nice,” he said. “And I think it’s slightly more complicated, unfortunately.”

Trixie shrugged. “Mommy likes you. You like her.” She smiled. “I like you.” She laid her head back down on his shoulder. “What’s the problem?” she asked, and the strain behind her voice made Lucifer shut his eyes at its implication.

She shivered, and he rubbed his hand over her the puffy, jacketed arm. “Are you cold?” he asked. She gave a noncommittal shrug.

In that moment, he realized the wetness against his collar was not from the mist.

 

He remembered a quote, from a book he’d picked up absently from a used bookstore when he first arrived. He liked the title, The Unexpected Universe, because really, what was so unexpected about it? It had been all so planned, so carefully crafted and manipulated and created to suit the needs and whims of another. 

He’d read the book on a lonely evening, before he bought the club, when Maze was out with someone (in one of the few instances she left him behind, determined to discover certain experiences for herself). Before the penthouse, as he lay on a luxuriant hotel bed on an upper floor, contemplating what to do next. It had been raining then, too. 

“But I had seen my miracle,” he remembered, not daring to say the words aloud. “I had seen the universe as it begins, for all things. It was, in reality, a child’s universe, a tiny and laughing universe.”

 

It wasn’t laughing at him.

It was just laughing.

 

He smiled against her forehead and tugged the child closer, wrapping his other hand around her shoulder. 

“Would you like it, if I stayed?” he asked.

She nodded against him. 

“In that case,” he started, letting his wings unfurl and wrap around her, bathing her in the gentle, warm glow and cutting out the misting wind, “I should probably keep you from getting hypothermia. I don’t think your mother would be very pleased with me if that happened.”

The child, perhaps still in a tired and dreamy state, barely stirred. She reached a tentative hand forward, brushing down the length of a feather. “I thought you were supposed to be the Devil,” she said.

He looked out, beyond the tops of his wings, to the horizon. The line was barely visible beneath the clouds. 

 

He had to believe in Free Will. The Fall – the eternity – the slandering of his name. It all led to here. To a child, touching a feather with curiosity and awe, not fear. He was the one who had been afraid. He had been afraid for so long. 

No longer.

 

She sat up and looked into his face, her own dark eyes searching for meaning in a universe that was unwilling to provide an answer. 

But he could.

“I was an angel, first,” he explained. “Perhaps I always was.”

She nodded, brushing her hand down the feathers, trailing them between her fingers like water.

“What would you like for lunch?” he asked.

He smiled, open and genuine, at her expression. She pulled her hand back to her lap. “Chocolate cake,” she said, an excitement building in her voice.

He retracted the wings, folding and disappearing them along his back as he lifted and set her down, standing, upon the sand. He brushed the tops of his trousers and laughed. “We should probably get you something more substantial, first,” he told her, starting back toward the car.

“Fine,” she relinquished. “But you’re buying.”

He chuckled, and she grabbed his hand. 

 

A tiny and laughing universe, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was really important for me to write. Thank you for making me get to this point.  
> I grew up in California, and when I was at Trixie's age my father and I used to go to the beach like this. These are some of my fondest memories, but they are bittersweet, because soon after my mother remarried and we had to move away.  
> I shed much-needed tears at the idea of Lucifer leaving Trixie, and her knowing it before it happened, because it happened to me.
> 
> Thank you for reading.
> 
> I think one more chapter will suffice. Something fluffy. Stay tuned.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fluff we've all been waiting for.

Chloe heard the door creak open in the fading light, and a set of heavier than usual footsteps entered her apartment. She placed the bookmark in her page and stretched as she lifted herself out of the armchair in the corner of the living room, leaving the reading lamp on, softly illuminating the space.

She turned the corner as Lucifer shut the door behind him, a passed out Trixie in his arms. Her head rested his shoulder, and Chloe smiled at the ease on her daughter’s face. Lucifer turned on his heel, catching her gaze. He looked almost surprised to see her, which surprised her in turn, but he recovered quickly, smiling sheepishly at the ground. She directed him toward the child’s bedroom, and he set her on the bed with a gentleness she had only sensed, hidden under the surface. Trixie stirred as he left the room, allowing Chloe to get her changed into something more appropriate for bed, though her normal bedtime was still a few hours away.

Lucifer noticed Maze’s door was also shut, and listened for sounds of his friend; apparently, she was out. He heard the muted tones of conversation emanating from Trixie’s bedroom, but couldn’t make out the words.

He abandoned the damp coat over the back of the couch, fiddling with his cuff link as he strolled toward the kitchen. 

It stopped him in his tracks.

The comfort he felt, here. In her home. She had been trying so hard to make him feel welcome that he almost forgot to notice.

 

What else hadn’t he noticed?

 

He was very nonchalantly tilting his head, trying to read the title of the book she had set on the end table when she came into the living room, cocking her head as he straightened. 

“Thank you,” she said. “Trixie said she had a good time. Pancakes and all.”

“Yes, well,” he started, fingering the button of his jacket, resisting the urge to remove it, “she had a very intense desire to see the tide pools, though I can’t imagine why. Did she find what she was looking for?”

Chloe nodded, biting the inside of her lip. “Did you?”

Her loose, white long-sleeve caught and reflected the light, her golden hair framing her face. She looked quite small, standing there – alone.

It wouldn’t do.

He took a tentative step forward, closer into that unspoken personal space, though still too far to be intimate.

“I would ask if your child is of a celestial nature, but she’s got far too many demonic qualities for that.”

“So, in other words – human?”

He chuckled, low in his throat, and took another step. “Human, yes. Awful.”

She hadn’t heard him tease anyone in so long, it took her a moment to register it. “Horrible,” she agreed.

It was then she noticed the lightness in his step, the way the soft smile reached his eyes. He lifted his hand from the button and opened his mouth to say something at the same moment she did, and they both faltered.

“Go ahead,” he urged, letting his hand fall. “Ladies first.”

She shook her head shyly, but he silently urged her on, the smile replaced by a dark seriousness in his features.

“I should have said something, before,” she explained, wringing her hands together before letting them drop. “I’m a detective, and I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.” He shook his head, confused, and she continued. “After you went missing, I was just so glad to have you back – to know you hadn’t –”

“Run away?” he filled in.

She shrugged lightly. “Can’t blame a girl.”

He inhaled, and stepped closer. “And I would never. I’m the one who should be apologizing. So,” he wavered, searching for the right words. “I’m sorry. I was –”

“Lost?” she offered, and he dropped his gaze, nodding curtly toward the floor. “And now?” she asked.

He rolled his shoulders back and down, and she got the impression he was bracing for battle. “Forwards,” he told her. “Always forwards.”

“You don’t have to be so serious about it,” she teased.

“I’m a very serious person,” he responded. She caught an incredulous giggle in her throat, and he made a soft noise in protest. “When have you ever known me not to be?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she started, reaching out a brushing a hand against his. “Only since, like, we first met.”

He took her hand, running a thumb over her knuckles. “When your business is pleasure, the lines have a tendency to become blurred,” he admitted, failing to hide the admiration in his gaze at her closer proximity. “To be fair, the business hasn’t exactly been that, lately.”

She drank in the gleam returning his eyes, the mischievous glimmer that had been missing for too long.

“What has been happening at Lux?” he asked, concern flickering over his face.

It was as though he were waking up, she realized.

Chloe shrugged. “Maze’s been running things. Seems she got used to it. Might have to fight her a bit.”

“Well, no change there.”

She’d like to see him, waking up. He had been gone by the time she awoke, the last time he’d stayed.

He swallowed thickly, his voice hoarse. “Perhaps in the morning, then. I’ll check in.”

She trailed her other hand up his arm, coming to rest on his neck. He leaned down, closing his eyes, and she pulled their foreheads together.

“And until then?” she asked, able to feel the smile as it radiated off him.

“Whatever you desire,” he breathed.

 

He took them back to the beach, under the gaze of the warm summer sun. Chloe wore a red bikini and sarong, though it did little to prevent Lucifer’s fingers from slipping under the hem of it when her child turned away; she batted his hand away, laughing, each time. Trixie showed her mother the cave and Lucifer threw each of them, a little too high in the air for Chloe’s liking, while splashing together in the shallows, much to the squeals and delight of the child. A few other families dotted the beach, but it wasn’t a popular spot amongst the other, many miles of sand. Mostly locals, enjoying a picnic out, save for Maze and Amenadiel, who enjoyed themselves – a bit too much, Chloe suggested, clearing her throat – a short distance away.

They had a job, back home. Murders littered the city like cigarette butts, and they were rarely idle. He had the club, and his piano, and his deals. This wasn’t the beach he landed on, the beach of the city he’d made his home, because where else would he go?

This was the beach he chose. Not to land upon, but to rise from.

Chloe joined him where he sat on the sand, fitting between his upturned knees and facing the water. He wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder.

“We should wait,” he told her, watching the setting sun. Maze and Amenadiel were beginning to pack up. “We should wait until it gets dark.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, brushing her drying hair off her shoulder before leaning into his cheek. “And don’t you ever get cold?” she asked, playfully smacking his shin. 

“No. Part of the package, I’m afraid.”

She huffed at his choice of words, and in protest he pushed said accoutrement deeper into her lower back. She stifled a soft noise from her throat, leaning her head back to rest against him, keeping an eye on her child. Trixie had abandoned swimming, donning an oversized sweatshirt, and was now carefully inspecting something in the sand.

“There are few things in this life that I am truly proud of,” he said, his voice low in the dimming light. “I’d like to see both at the same time.”

“Both?” she asked, playing with the hem of his swim trunks, looking up when Maze and Amenadiel approached, to let them know they were taking off. They said their goodbyes, Trixie waving from the edge of the darkening water, and Chloe decided to wait a few more minutes before calling her back to them.

He rested back on his hands and she turned to see him better. “’Therefore we come forth, to see again the stars,’” he quoted.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“Dante.”

“Dante,” she huffed, turning back around. 

“He had some very interesting ideas,” he protested, as she called out Trixie’s name.

“No, I believe you,” she said, feeling her cheeks reddening from holding back a laugh.

He stiffened, then lunged forward, grabbing and pulling her back toward him. They were both laughing by the time the child ran back.

“Are we going home, now?” Trixie asked, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice.

“In a few minutes, monkey,” Chloe answered. “We’re going to watch the stars come out, first.”

“Cool!” said the child, plopping down by Lucifer’s side and lifting a foot, dusting off the sand that had accumulated there before shoving it into a sandal. She repeated the maneuver as the adults got comfortable. She grabbed one of Lucifer’s arms and pulled it around herself, settling against him.

“You’re so cheesy,” Chloe teased, as the stars began to find their lights in the rising darkness.

“Incredibly,” he answered. “Look at what you’ve made the Devil become.”

Trixie lifted her head to gaze into Lucifer’s eyes, a mischievous smile on her face. He would take credit, but she did that on all her own.

With a nod to her, he outstretched his wings, brushing them against Chloe’s bare, cold arm before letting them rest against the sand. She smiled, but said nothing. After a few moments, he noticed she had begun running her fingers down a few feathers.

It tickled.

He stifled a laugh, the wing shaking of its own accord. Chloe turned, a little shocked at the reaction. Trixie tackled him, and then Chloe joined in, and it was all over, then.

The stars, forgotten, continued to light the way for any who may be lost.

He no longer counted himself among them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it!  
> Hope you all enjoyed, I certainly did!


End file.
